I'm new to Common Lisp, but setting up a good Lisp environment under my OS seems to me the major problem.

In fact, I've installed Slime + SBCL 1.0.13 on Emacs 22.Now, I wanted to use some external libs, like vecto or cl-pdf. I've seen I have to use asdf-install, but how to install it on Windows ? [I've read this useful post, but I did not understood the last point in the additional notes section ]

When I look at projects like PLT-Scheme, there's a great multiplateform IDE, and no problems to install it: you just have to code. Now, going to Common Lisp, you either have a choice between Emacs+Slime and you'll have to spent hours on to configure them for a newbie, and proprietary tools like Allegro or LispWorks (yes, with restricted free versions) why ?

Nothing to the above, but maybe that can help some of you. Here's a Firefox plugin (working with version 3) that brings a BBCode bar for forums like this one : BBCode bar

I'm just a dabbler, but I've found SLIME+SBCL to be a pretty nice environment. I don't bother with ASDF-install. I just unzip the archives I need into the sbcl directory. It's slightly annoying, but still easier than getting ASDF-install working under Windows.

I currently use xemacs on windows to connect to sbcl running on linux, but had reasonable luck a few years ago using xemacs / slime / clisp on windows. I had followed some old Bill Clemenson articles, and had eventually got cl-sdl working. I made made a simple zombie simulation with a grid showing zombies infecting people and everyone moving around, it was pretty fun. I no longer use that setup, I bought an EEEPC and run sbcl / emacs / slime off that little guy.

I've started a google project last year called CLOW - Common Lisp On Windows, but haven't got time to further put more into it.

As it's now, it's just a bunch of bat files, and list of files from the net - where stuff is going to be installed on your machine. My idea was to have different lisps running for Windows, but nowadays I'm more sticking to one lisp at a time.

Now my plans are to rewrite these batch files in some small lisp distribution like ECLS and distribute with it. Probably I'm taking the wrong approach anyway, but my experience from 20+ years using C, Pascal, Makefiles, etc. could be hard to change...

Then, I just call (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :cl-something). The problem is that you have to manually download and unpack all libraries you need (including dependencies) to /path/to/site-systems/ . But once you've done that, you only need to call (register-asdf-systems) when you start your lisp image.

I have already tried LispBox and it works quiet well, but not with adsf-install, taht's why I asked the question here.And I bought my first Lisp book 2 month ago "Practical Common Lisp". It is worth a look, for sure!